In Search of a Better Life: As of yesterday, there were 54,469 refugees officially registered in Greece

Many thousands more are unregistered.

The line between Kifisia, to the north of Athens and Piraeus to the south-west is the oldest Metro line in the network. It’s not been bored, deep below ground but, like London’s first Underground line, the Metropolitan, the initial section was constructed by the self-explicit trench and fill method. While the airport line is new, with gleaming, spotless coaches built by Hyundai in South Korea, the Piraeus line has old rolling stock with wooden seats, the outside of the carriages decorated with crazy spray-painted patterns in garish colours.

The Piraeus Metro

It trundles out through the suburbs, past the Olympiakos football stadium to arrive eventually at a high-roofed, fin-de-siècle station that is reminiscent of a more genteel kind of tourism.

If you look around the carriages, you’ll probably see at least a couple of refugees, curled up sleeping on the bench seats. The regular ticket costs just over £1, and is probably the cheapest place to sleep under cover, in Athens in the daytime.

Across the road from the station are the gates to the port, where complimentary shuttle buses wait to transport passengers to their inter-island ferry-boats. They take a circular route, so each bus has an eclectic mix of passengers, island residents going home after visiting relatives in Athens, tourists island-hopping across to Hydra for a change of scenery, back-packers heading for Samos from where they can take off, as I did forty-odd years ago, heading across Turkey and Iran, with the ultimate destination of Kashmir. And, of course, there are refugees, heading back to the sprawling camp.

As the bus approached Gate E-One, the police boarded and demanded to check the papers of anyone with a dark skin. They were dispassionate and efficient, but I felt a chill down my spine. Now, I always carry my passport here in Greece. Last time I felt obliged to do that was Checkpoint Charlie, East Berlin, November 1961.

When I came down to Piraeus last month, there was a substantial camp around Gates E-2 and E-3, but these settlements have now been cleansed so that tourists setting off to the islands are not affronted by the sights and smells of poverty. The only campsite now permitted in Piraeus is here at E-1, way down more than a kilometre along the quayside, Here, little nylon igloos are pitched on the tarmac or in an empty warehouse, or under the flyover, and stretch into the distance, literally as far as the eye can see.

Refugee tents - as far as the eye can see

The numbers have gradually dwindled as more and more refugees are relocated out of town. A month ago there were about 5,000 living here; now it’s nearer 1,500 who are fed by a team comprising both refugees and volunteers.

Volunteers prepare about 1,500 meals every day

There are always new rumours, of borders opening, of new enormous detention centres opening on the islands, and of what will happen in Piraeus. They say that the authorities want to continue emptying this camp and relocate the remaining hundreds of refugees to secure accommodation outside Athens. The refugees just want to get out of Greece, where the police and military are increasingly aggressive.

The only countries that seem to understand the opportunities created by the crisis are Germany and Portugal – but while Portugal wants refugees, refugees don’t want to go to Portugal, which is an unknown country for them. Over the next four years, Germany is planning to invest 93.6 billion euros in integrating refugees to boost the German economy. Germany seems to understand, but as ever – Britain is an island.

Meanwhile, the volunteers keep working, trying to make life bearable for families living in tiny tents on tarmac.